If you visited the St Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin this year you may have spotted an array of giant dogs and monsters, as captured in this wonderful photo by Michela Orlandi.

The dogs featured as part of a theme inspired by Roddy Doyle’s new story “Brilliant“, in which two Dublin kids overhear their parents talking darkly of Ireland’s fate.

The children take the comment of a “black dog of depression” literally, which inspires them to enlist a legion of followers to help them find the black dog and reclaim the city’s lost funny bone.

Brilliant was commissioned especially for the St Patrick’s day parade to mark Dublin as a UNESCO City of Literature.

Here is a quick extract from Brilliant:

A city is made of bricks and cement, and bricks and cement can’t be depressed.

-I’ve never been depressed a day in me life, said a brick on the second floor of Arnott’s.

-Me neither, said a bag of cement on the back of a truck on Bachelor’s Walk. –Although I wouldn’t mind a drop of water.

Dublin was made of bricks and cement, tar and, eh –

Glass.

Glass. So Dublin wasn’t depressed. It was the people who lived in Dublin

who were depressed. Although most of them didn’t know it.

You can read the whole book free of charge on Roddy Doyle’s website here (pdf).

Fantastic. Or should we say: Brilliant.

Article by PetInsuranceIreland.com.

"Lucy on the Beach" - Photo by Blue Sky 4691

An interesting article in the Irish Times today by Rosita Boland brings up the point of just how hard it is to find dog friendly accommodation in Ireland.

I think this quote sums up just how fantastically wrong it can get:

I arrived to find the “pet-friendly” accommodation for my dog consisted of a wooden garden hut full of uncovered saws and building tools with a door that wouldn’t close, next to the main Sligo-Donegal road.

I had to go looking for a piece of wood to jam up against the door and spent much of the night fretting the dog would get out.

Oh dear!

It is fair to say that anyone who has travelled with a dog will agree that it adds another level of difficulty to finding a suitable hotel or B & B.

Features to look for in a dog friendly hotel / B&B

Are you travelling for business or leisure?

Business

Dog walking and a concierge services are a great luxury.

If you think you are going to be busy for long periods you may want to look into dog kennel services.

Leisure

If you are staying for leisure some of the things you might want to consider are:

Location! – You will of course want to find somewhere that has great places to walk your dog. Many pet friendly hotels/B&Bs have pre-planned dog walks you can go on.

Dog friendly rooms. Can you keep your pet in your room? Are there water and food facilities? Litter trays?

A dog hotel in Tokyo - Photo by monika.monika

Finding pet friendly accommodation in Ireland

A great website we found that is made for the purpose of finding dog friendly accommodation in Ireland is StayDoggy.com.

StayDoggy.com – “Ireland’s only dog friendly accommodation website” — at the time of writing lists almost 60 dog friendly hotels and B & Bs in Ireland.

Here are some popular dog friendly hotels in Ireland:

Cork

Castle Hotel – The Castle Hotel in Cork aim to provide a dog walking, concierge and grooming service, dog friendly rooms with water and food.

Website: http://www.castlehotel.ie/dog-friendly

Donegal

Harvey’s Point – Provide pet friendly rooms and a beautiful pet friendly location on the shores of Lough Eske.

Website: http://www.harveyspoint.com/bedrooms/default.asp?id=182

Help us make this page better!

Do you know a pet friendly hotel that you would recommend? Get in touch! We would love to list it here.

This article was written by PetInsuranceIreland.com. Compare and review the best pet insurance deals in Ireland.

We have gathered some tips together for shopping safely online.

Using credit card information or your bank details?

If you are using your credit card, or submitting any particularly sensitive information about yourself like your date of birth or bank details, always look out for HTTPS.

This means you are connected using a secured HTTPS connection. This offers a basic level of encryption between the website you are using and your internet browser, making it harder for your data to be intercepted.

This will usually be indicated in the browser’s URL bar towards the top of the screen. An example is show below, of what you would see in the Google Chrome browser whilst connected to a secure website.

For less sensitive information such as your name and telephone number, it is not always absolutely essential for a website to use HTTPS. But it certainly is something to look out for.

Emails

Do not click on links in emails unless you absolutely trust the sender. Even if you do you should always show extreme caution. Cyber criminals are getting increasing sophisticated, shrewd and clever. Just because you receive an email from a friend, co-worker or loved one – it doesn’t mean that they themselves sent it. Their computer, social networking profile or email account may have been hacked.

If you receive an email claiming to be from your bank or other financial service, always be extra careful.

Your bank will never send you an email asking you to “Verify your account” by filling in your account number or other details.

Even if the link takes you to a site that looks like your banks website still be careful. You have ended up on a “phishing site” – that looks like your bank but actually isn’t.

More information on staying safe online

For more information staying safe online, the following resources may be useful:

• http://www.safecard.ie/cardholders/phishing/ – Information from the Irish Payment Services Organisation (IPSO) to help raise awareness about credit card card fraud and phishing.
• http://www.webwise.ie/ – Special web-portal for kids about online safety
• http://www.ispcc.ie/Under-18/Staying-Safe-Online.aspx – Information for kids in Ireland on staying safe online

Lucy looks towards Black rock and Ballyheige - Photo by Blue Sky 4691

We thought we would compile some of our favourite dog pictures at the moment from photographers in Ireland.

If you have any pictures of your pets you would like us to add to the site we would love to show them so please get in touch here.

Photo by Guimo.

Photo by Fiona MacGinty.

Photo by .ky

Photo by by Ciaran McGuiggan

]]> http://www.petinsuranceireland.com/news/pictures/pictures-of-dogs-and-cats-in-ireland/feed/ 0 http://www.petinsuranceireland.com/news/dogs-news/dog-detects-early-colon-cancer-by-scent/ http://www.petinsuranceireland.com/news/dogs-news/dog-detects-early-colon-cancer-by-scent/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 01:32:11 +0000 admin http://www.petinsuranceireland.com/?p=841 A report in the Irish Medical Times featuring information from a new Japanese study states that dogs have the ability to detect bowel cancer by scent.

The Japanese study found that the information seem to “show that a specific cancer scent does exist.”

Over a period of server months an expertly trained Labrador retriever would conduct 74 sniff tests, where only one was cancerous.

The dogs had the ability to sniff out cancer at a very high degree of accuracy.

Samples from smokers or patients with gut problems might have expected to mask or otherwise interfere with the dogs ability to detect caner but it did not.

The authors concluded that although using dogs to screen for cancers was impractical and expensive, it showed that a scent based sensor in theory could be developed.

For more information on the study visit this page.

Article by Pet Insurance Ireland.